Apple today updated its HomePod product page with new details about the speaker's gesture controls for Siri and audio playback.
Apple has confirmed that users can tap the top of the HomePod to play, pause, skip a song, or adjust the volume, or touch and hold to talk to Siri. A colorful, animated LED waveform will appear when Siri is listening.
A single tap plays or pauses music, a double tap skips to the next track, and a triple trap returns to the previous track. Tapping and holding the digital plus or minus sign raises or lowers the speaker's volume respectively.
The touch and hold gesture to invoke Siri is in addition to the "Hey Siri" voice command that can be said from anywhere in a room.
Apple today announced that the HomePod will be available to order starting Friday, January 26, with in-store availability and orders arriving to customers starting Friday, February 9, in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom.
Sunday February 23, 2025 2:23 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
The first beta of iOS 18.4 is now available, and it includes a small but useful change for CarPlay.
As we noted in our list of iOS 18.4 features, CarPlay now shows a third row of icons, up from two rows previously. However, this change is only visible in vehicles with a larger center display. For example, a MacRumors Forums member noticed the change in a Toyota Tundra, which can be equipped...
Wednesday February 26, 2025 6:32 am PST by Joe Rossignol
In an all-caps post on Truth Social today, U.S. President Donald Trump said Apple should fully end its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies.
Tim Cook meeting with President Trump in 2017
"APPLE SHOULD GET RID OF DEI RULES, NOT JUST MAKE ADJUSTMENTS TO THEM," he wrote.
Trump's post comes one day after Apple held its annual shareholders meeting, during which a majority of...
The Apple Watch Ultra 3 is expected to launch later this year, arriving two years after the previous model with a series of improvements.
While no noticeable design changes are expected for the third generation since the company tends to stick with the same Apple Watch design through three generations before changing it, there are a series of internal upgrades on the way.
By the time the ...
Tuesday February 25, 2025 2:58 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple is making significant headway on its long-rumored foldable iPhone, with a new report suggesting the company has achieved a major breakthrough by effectively eliminating the screen crease that plagues current foldable devices.
According to Korean publication ETNews, Apple is finalizing its component suppliers for the foldable iPhone, with the selection process expected to be completed...
Monday February 24, 2025 6:11 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple plans to launch a second-generation AirTag in May or June this year, according to a post today from a leaker known as Kosutami.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman previously reported that a new AirTag would be released in mid-2025. May or June would align with that timeframe.
Below, we recap three new features rumored for the AirTag 2:
With a second-generation Ultra Wideband chip, the...
Monday February 24, 2025 2:49 am PST by Tim Hardwick
A new CAD render of all the devices in Apple's upcoming iPhone 17 lineup has been shared online by leaker Majin Bu, specifically showing the allegedly different rear camera system designs of the standard iPhone 17, all-new ultra-thin iPhone 17 Air, and the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max models.
The leaker Majin Bu has had some hits in the past, but some of his information has been wrong,...
Tuesday February 25, 2025 1:18 pm PST by Juli Clover
Multiple iPhone owners today noticed a pronunciation processing issue that causes the word "Trump" to momentarily show up when using dictation to send a message with the word "racist."
In some cases, when speaking the word racist through the iPhone's built-in dictation feature, the iPhone briefly interprets the spoken word as "Trump" and "Trump" text shows up in the Messages app before being ...
Wednesday February 26, 2025 7:15 am PST by Joe Rossignol
In a recent press release, Apple confirmed that iOS 18.4 will be released in April.
From the Apple News+ Food announcement:Coming with iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 in April, Apple News+ subscribers will have access to Apple News+ Food, a new section that will feature tens of thousands of recipes — as well as stories about restaurants, healthy eating, kitchen essentials, and more — from the...
Do they expect me to always get up and go to HomePod to interact with it? I thought it was all about voice?
Exactly. Plus multiroom sometime later this year? They needed this to come out before Christmas and since they delayed it, they needed a product that was all around ahead of where Amazon Echo and Google Home are now. Other than quality of the speaker, I don’t get the impression they accomplished that. I’m glad I broke down and got Echoes and Echo Dots earlier this month.
Earlier today I asked Siri to make a calendar entry for 1:25pm. Siri interpreted this as 1 20 5 PM and spat out her dummy.
And that’s the reason I could never spend £319 on this, regardless of the sound quality.
I ask siri to take me to the nearest Target and even though I'm heading towards one that is 4 miles away on the freeway in the direction I'm traveling - while using AppleMaps - she tries to tell me the nearest one to me is 17 miles to it and in the opposite direction of what I'm traveling.
Siri and suck it. She pushes me closer to getting off the apple train and that's someone who is deep in the sandbox with the watch, the phone, the tv, a laptop, and all my accounts synced in between and what have you.
I'm extremely skeptical she'll work better than where she is currently at which seems to some how have taken two steps backwards and five steps diagonally. The Amazon Echo can hear me in a room where people are talking and the TV is on, but Siri can barely do Hey siri in a quiet room if someone else is talking.
Earlier today I asked Siri to make a calendar entry for 1:25pm. Siri interpreted this as 1 20 5 PM and spat out her dummy.
And that’s the reason I could never spend £319 on this, regardless of the sound quality.
Siri needs a lot of work. I work on a college campus. Yesterday I asked Siri to "remind me to go to room three hundred one" at a certain time. She had "300 one". I mean, sure, I knew what she meant. And the reminder was good enough to remind me. But....
